National Grain Week Keeps Farmers Busy in Ottawa

It's the second annual National Grain Week which means farmers from across the country are hard at work in Ottawa.

Grain Growers of Canada Chair and Olds area farmer, Jeff Nielsen, says members of the association have been meeting with the Federal Agriculture Minister, Lawrence MacAulay, New Members of Parliament, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada staff.

"Naturally, a lot of these people are being lobbied continually by major organizations, but when you can actually bring a producer in, we can see a lot of lights go off. There's smiles and the welcome that you're actually bring in a producer who can talk on a specific topic and help everybody understand more about Canadian agriculture."

Nielsen says during their meeting with MacAulay, they talked about the Government's goal of achieving over $75 billion in agriculture and agri-food exports by 2025.

"We just wanted to touch base with the Minister of Agriculture on that, and just state, yes, we're ready to meet these challenges, we just need to ensure we have the ability to get out product to our customers in a timely fashion and in the quality that we know we can make."

He says discussions with the Ag Minister centered around market access and new trade agreements.

Nielsen says other challenges effecting agriculture producers they're working on include the carbon tax and how the Canadian Grain Commission's surplus of farmer dollars will be spent.